


Light Up the Night

by midnightflame



Series: Homecoming [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, staring down the abyss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 15:33:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8166968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: Saving graces come in the smallest, most fleeting of actions.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick piece. It's my first attempt at anything involving Shiro or this fandom in particular, but I wanted to explore this side of him. And there may be a companion Keith piece to it later. I shall see. Rating it mature just because I know the pairing has its controversy, but there's nothing too explicit and I do write them as being of appropriate consenting age.

It’s vast. Overwhelming. Enough to swallow the heart whole and leave nothing but the mirage of an existence in its place. 

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. 

Sometimes, he doesn’t quite know. Just like how he can look down at his arm and not recognize it as his own (and it isn’t really, but rather remains something foreign and intrusive like creeper vines curling around sinew and bone, threatening to infiltrate his mind and overtake), yet knowing full well that this is part of him and there is no escaping that little bit of reality that had bound itself to him. 

When Shiro looks out into the space beyond, some nights all he sees is the soul-emptying blackness of far too much. Far, far too much. The thought rattles about in his head, agitating all the things that are better left on their shelves, neatly lined with a fine dust coating the jar, lids screwed on just a little too tight. All the things he can’t quite get rid of but tries dutifully not to disturb. But, there are nights like tonight, where he swears he can hear crashing, glass shattering as a million little marbles of panic start rolling through his head and he wants to pick them all up, each and every little bead, and return them to something new and solid as iron. Thinks that maybe next time he shouldn’t store his memories in something as brittle as glass. 

But how else can he see them and know he’s still human.

He’s far too human. 

And there are things he had done to try and kill that, just enough of it to get him through. But when he’s sitting here, staring down the empty of the galaxy, he remembers that he didn’t kill enough of it. Just enough to leave the scars and the vice around his heart. It was hardly a clean affair.

He doesn’t know why he bothers to look outside. The only thing staring back is the hollowed out reflection of himself in the window, offering nothing. Saying nothing. Maybe there is simply nothing to be said because far too much has already been done, and he wonders if there’s something like forgiveness waiting to unfold there in the dark and cold of space. Because certainly there has to be a star blossoming there somewhere with something more to offer him than the panic starting to smoke up from his core, threatening to suffocate him with every ensuing breath.

Needs to breathe to live. Can’t keep doing so without the threat of dying. 

How did everything get so fucked up?

If he can just collect his thoughts, then maybe there’s a chance. But they’re still there bouncing around with sharp ceramic clicks, and there is glass scattered everywhere, and there is nothing he can touch without bleeding for the effort. 

Again and again. Always again.

That’s when it happens – that pinpoint flicker of light in the far off dark. And Shiro doesn’t know if it’s a star dying or ascending, but all he can think is how ridiculous it is that something can be born and die with the same heart-startling brilliance. But there is warmth now, climbing up from his fingers, easing the tension from his arm, his shoulders, his jaw. It sparks, again and again, slowly making its way from wrist to elbow. 

When Shiro pulls his gaze from the window, it’s to see Keith’s lips upon his skin, perfect little conduits of calm. He feels his lungs expand, followed by the first painful push of blood through his heart as it remembers he is still wretchedly. . .wonderfully alive. Again and again, it beats, slowly finding rhythm beneath Keith’s quiet kisses. And with every kiss, Shiro finds himself willing a wish into existence. Something to soak up the void in his head.

Beneath the low electric purple of the safety lights, disheveled and stripped down, Keith is bright and warm and so beautifully human. 

Shiro exhales softly as Keith’s mouth sinks against his, as a hand settles over his heart and wills its beat into a steady cadence. 

Again and again. Always again.

Keith finds him.


End file.
